Here is the walk I promised along a trail to the sea [“Le Bout des Crocs”] near the Parc du Marquenterre in the Baie de Somme Nature Reserve, with tales of things we collected along the way, and what we did with them, of course, which was to make jam with dog rose hips, and then a sloe gin.
There’s not much of a recipe to report, more a bit of fun working with wild and unfamiliar (to us) things. To make sloe gin all you need is to combine sloes, some light gin (like Bombay Sapphire) and a bit of sugar in a bottle and allow that to sit for 2 months until it comes together as a deep red liqueur to which a few drops of added almond essence as said to highlight the flavor contributions of the sloe pits. We added a little sea buckthorn just because we had too little of it to do much else with; hawthorn berries, pine needles and dog rose hips might have gone in there, too. Learning that my French brother-in-law was also known as Jean de la dune, John of the dunes, owing to the location of his family home on the dunes, it was obvious that any infusion made from ingrédients des dunes would have to be known as gin de la dune. Gin of the dunes.
This, really, is how all the first gins were made–specific botanicals infused in a neutral grain alcohol (usually wheat or barley) either by direct steeping for a specific length of time or by vapor-infusing method of distillation. These days, gin can’t be called “gin” unless it’s had some juniper berries in it, but that hasn’t stopped quite many creatives from distilling, with minimal juniper, for example, South Africa’s lovely Inverroche from the unique flora of the Cape Floristic Region–in other words, fynbos. So, a good gin can well be a palette on which to collect and mix up local flavors, in the best ways. And although Vodka is properly not always distilled from wheat or barley, a decent distillate can serve as the base for such extraction [as it does for pure vanilla essence, which I’ve never bought after I started making my own].
But the recipe is hardly the point. The point is the walk through the dunes, the meandering, the wild world opening out as a sensory palette of colors and tastes, and a series of flavor possibilities. What you see here is just one outcome. There might have been a hundred others, each one its own sort of enjoyment.
Nor is the drinking the point here. We have a long and in fact respected history of reviling drink and drinking cultures in India–the lives, problems, habits, personalities that naturally draw from the consumption of spirits. I’m not trying to topple any of that [urbanites with too much spending money are doing all that post haste anyway] but I am here to note that if you don’t have to drink to understand the loveliness of a good vanilla extract, then the same applies in appreciating these flavors extracted in alcohol, too. There are many ways by which to receive the offerings of the natural world. Alcohol is mere medium, the easiest and straightest way really, to keeping and playing with complex flavors.
Finding the Dunes
It’s funny-sad to acknowledge that I live on a coastline and hear all the time from the environmentalists around me about coastal ecosystems and the importance of coastal wetlands as a protective buffer against cyclonic storms–but it took a trip to Picardie in northern France to actually walk the dunes and see first hand the successive bands of their movement inland, and the varied vegetation that characterizes and fixes more-and-more each one. Perhaps there are walks like this to take in Pondicherry, too, or up the coast to Chennai, but I’m yet to find a trailhead amidst all the fishing settlements and “resorts” clamoring for space and effectively stamping themselves over any prior existing natural ecosystem. Some stretches of coastline in this town have been completely destroyed by the building of a port and is now protected by the building of a “seawall” (a bit like in Galveston) and lining the coast next to us with tremendous rocks or cement structures (a bit like I’ve seen in Manila bay). It has taken much doing to get even a small bit of Pondicherry’s old beach back.
There might have been walks like this in Houston, too, or in Galveston, where we caught glimpses of dunes on the Galveston Island State Park and on drives to the Bolivar peninsula, but one got the sense there of dunes and beaches as being human-engineered responses to a rapidly eroding coast that were trying to protect human settlements rather than allowing the formation of whole ecosystems. In short, finding natural, organically formed things in the midst of nature itself has become something of a task in many of the coastlines I have known.
All this felt a bit different in Picardie, where the town is at least seasonal, shut down in the winter when we were there, and just that stasis makes the natural world more obvious, even if just by contrast. We started on the seashore with the coastal dunes, embryonic, shape-shifting, whipped by the wind, grabbed by tides, and hard to pin down.
Dunes blanches (Dunes à Oyats)
On their fringes are the white dunes, Dunes blanches or Dunes a Oyats, where Oyat/Ammophila arenaria grasses whose blades are sharper than the wind is strong and whose roots find deep strongholds beneath the shifting sands–these allow sand to accumulate, and are the first signs of stabilization. It’s also where the Germans positioned their bunkers in World War 2; some still stand with the grasses.
Dunes à Argousiers
After this come the Dunes grises, the grey dunes, pelouses dunaires or “lawn dunes,” stilled by distance from the shore and by the presence of low, matty plants which enrich the soil with humus, and quickly make room for the Dunes Arbustives, the shrub dunes characterized by the abundant presence of thorns: sea buckthorn, blackthorn, hawthorn and more. Their presence is a sign that here animal grazing might begin, and the thorns generally are a protective against that.
In this stretch where everything was almost at person-height, is where we found the most interesting berries, both edible and not. We spent most of our time here.
1. Sea Buckthorn
The common sea buckthorn we realized is a lot like us: it loves the sea and the mountains in equal measure. Hippophae rhamnoides is native to the cold-temperate regions of Europe and Asia, and found abundantly on this stretch of the Picardie coast [as l’Argousier] and equally abundantly in the Himalayas [as chharma], and followed there by Hippophae salicifolia [HS; willow-leaved sea buckthorn] and other sub-species depending on region [turkestanica, tibetana]. Its leaves are used to make teas, and its fruit–well, jams, juices, syrups, though as with a lot of such wild fruit, harvesting the tiny orange fruit from long thorny branches is challenging and the soft, very perishable fruit must be used up nearly at once: a fact which poses all manner of problems for those seeking to profit commercially from the abundance these present in the Himalayas.
2. Poisonberry
Little flashes of red called out from beneath the brush, beautiful bunches of red berries on slender vines that somehow appeared too perfect and too untouched to be anything but dangerous. We weren’t wrong; these turned out to be Solanum dulcamara, the bittersweet nightshade, climbing nightshade, poisonberry. We tasted–gingerly–and found the bitterness first so out we spat them. Had we waited, we might have found their sweetness, too, but it’s a good thing we didn’t because they’re toxic–mildly so, but they are. And apparently a risk for little children who find them exactly at their own eye-levels, and are easily tempted by them in just the ways we were. You’ve got to grant it, poisonberry or no, they’re strikingly beautiful.
3. Dog Roses
Beyond the distinct band of sea buckthorn, we found other thorny but larger shrubs, most of which have become common as hedgerow plants in Britain as much as in these parts. Dog roses were the most recognizable, in this season by their hips, which we collected in handfuls to make teas and jam.
4. Blackthorn. Sloes, Prunelles
Then was a long corridor with thorn thickets on either side, reaching branches laden with blue-black fruit. Prunes, said Shari-Ann, going by taste alone. Prunelles or plosse, the French call them; blackthorn, sloes, say the English, Prunus Spinosa.
In Ireland it’s told that the Lunantishees guard these sacred bushes, and one dare not cut branches down on the day of the blackthorn sprites, nor bring any blossoms indoors. Lucky for us, we had that day (November 11) in Nantes, marked there as in Canada as a WW1 remembrance day.
Prunelles are a globular little drupe “with a bluish bloom,” already shriveling on the branches when we found them, not so nice to eat because they’re tannin-rich and quite astringent, but the star ingredient of sloe gin because their flesh imparts tang and their pits an almondy essence, if left along long enough, making a nice, lightly sweetened liqueur. When picked after the first frost, their astringence is apparently muted, so a “hack” is to freeze them if one picks them too early, to mimic the effects of a first frost.
I did this dutifully, both for reasons of possible taste-enhancement and also because carrying them home with me would be easier if the fruit was frozen rather than slowly fermenting, turning liquid, and/or spoiling in bags and trains and airplanes. I have no real sense that it worked for the taste, but it did get them safely home. It’s not traditional for sloe gin, but I added a handful of very carefully harvested sea buckthorn berries, too. I might have dropped in some pine needles, but I thought their tastes might overwhelm, so let that idea be.
5. Common Hawthorn
In the same area were common hawthorns, one-seed hawthorn, or single-seeded hawthorn, quickthorn (because they grow fast), whitethorn (because their flowers are white), Crataegus monogyna. These are Rosaceae family, so caught our attention for their likeness to rose hips. The berries (well, technically pomes) or haws are edible, used to make jellies, relishes, a haw ketchup, and hawthorn brandy. I might have brought some home with me, but left the branch behind in the rush of things.
These are also common hedgerow plants which create thickets and offer shelter to other thorn-less plants that seek their protection. Whole little plant ecosystems grow around them, as a result. “Mony haws, Mony snows,” say the Scotts, implying that haws in abundance are predictors of a snowy winter.
There’s a great deal of faerie lore associated with the hawthorn in England and Ireland, says Anna Franklin of The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies [2003] fame: “their trysting places are under its shade. When the oak, ash and thorn grow close together it is a favourite haunt of the fairy folk and those solitary hawthorns growing on hills or near wells are markers to the world of the fairies. Fairies are very protective of hawthorns, and a blooming tree should never be trimmed as it angers them, and always the tree should be trimmed east to west. It is so potently magical that it is forbidden to bring it indoors except at Beltane. Falling asleep beneath a hawthorn on May Eve may result in you being spirited away to the Otherworld.”
6. Wild Privets
Just before the forest starts to emerge are patches of common privets which love the forest edges wherever they grow. This is Ligustrum Vulgare, as striking as poisonberry, but rather more toxic and marked as such, perhaps because they can be mistaken for blackthorn, if one is not paying attention. But as with all things toxic they are not without their medicinal uses: the leaves make mouthwashes for sores, to treat chapped lips and as a wash for skin ailments, and “Chinese privet” has a long history of use in herbal medicine [Source]. The common name “privet” arises from the fact that shrubs can be trimmed easily and grow back leafily and dense green: they’re common as hedgerow plants, used to screen off privy gardens. The Latin name “Ligustrum” makes reference to the supple branches’ use to tie bundles, deriving from the verb lige: to bind, to which Virgil makes reference. The fruits last on the shrubs most of the winter, and are quite beautiful.
Privets are a genus of 50+ species. We found them growing all over from northern France into the Netherlands; their distribution is much wider: through to Northern Africa and many parts of Asia. They thrive in disturbed landscapes, and are listed as invasive plants huge detrimental to forest health in many places beyond the European and Asian continents, including Virginia, Florida, and Texas.
7. Cotoneaster
Cotoneaster: the name is a portmanteau of the Latin cotonea+aster, quince+wild. It is another representative of the Rosaceae family which also includes Hawthorns and of course dog roses, “comprises about 500 species with a Eurasian distribution; the centre of their diversity is in the mountains of China and the Himalayas … The fruits [of Cotoneaster Medikus] are orange to red or black pomes, with one to five seeds, and ripen in September to October. In the autumn, the leaf and fruit colour draws attention, with dark green leaves and bright red fruits giving a showy blend of orange and red, which is a desirable decorative value of Cotoneaster species … a valuable source of plant materials, recommended in the traditional medicine of Iran, Turkey, Mongolia, and Tibet for the treatment of nasal haemorrhage, excessive menstruation, haemorrhoids, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes mellitus, neonatal jaundice, fever, and cough” [Kicel 2020]
8. Spindle berry
Euonymus europaeus, the European spindle tree, or common spindle is so called because of its straighter-than-straight stems, which (when peeled) dry perfectly white, and thus were once used to make spindles, knitting needles, butchers’ skewers and suchlike. It’s a beautiful hedge plant, and when it produces spindle berries in the fall all the more so–they’re hot pink and orange, and make you wonder how it was that plants understood how to produce the most striking and unusual color combinations.
But the berries are toxic! Dried and powdered used to kill lice [Source]–even toxics have their value. Pretty as can be though, especially when the pink berries pop and show off the orange seeds they’re holding.
Dunes boisées (Pinède)
We then come into the pannes dunaires or humid zones, where the forest starts to take shape. In depressions between dunes there may be a pond here and there, locally called a pan. These are the dune wetlands, a combination of small puddles and wooded areas of forest. Goats watched us with great attention and caution, from very safe distances.
9. Black pines
In this case the forest is characterized by the plantation of Laricio pines: Pinus nigra, owing to the dark grey-toned color of its bark, the Austrian pines. These were planted here in the wake of WW2, mainly to help hold down the dunes and are noted as a useful tree for just this purpose.
Back from the wild
Beyond the pine dunes, are other worlds entirely. It’s where our walk came to an end; home was just beyond. Of course what I’ve presented here as a straight line from shore inland wasn’t quite as straight as all that–you sometimes wander through a patch of forest before finding the shrub and thorn dunes again. But the forest marks the start of some other landscape, less wild and more farmed (with sugarbeets that are either for sugar or livestock feed or both) and homestead-like.
10. Common Snowberry
Most of the plants growing on the dunes are native to this region, growing wild here, maybe extending to Africa and Asia, maybe becoming invasive in the Americas. Then there’s the common snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus: Symphori+carpos, borne together or clustered fruits; albus is white. They’re also called Waxberries, White Coralberries. These belong to the honeysuckle/Caprifoliaceae family, with 15 species, most of which are native to North and Central America (one’s from western China) and have long been naturalized in Britain, and clearly across the Channel, too, in France. Of all the colored berries we saw, however, nobody felt like eating these. Was it the color or the sense of their being pretty but essentially inedible? I’m not sure, but turned out that was a good call–they’re toxic to humans.
These berries greeted us on arrival in Fort Mahon-Plage: they made up the hedgerow, these drupe-like, a-bit-squooshy, perfectly white berries that love open forests. They were the first things we saw and the last when we left it all behind.
PS: Sea Sage
Atriplex portulacoides or sea purslane doesn’t quite belong on this walk through the dunes as it’s a of the goosefoot family we found on something of a detour that took us to the salt marshes–an estuarine landscape. I can’t imagine leaving it out, however, even though it’s not dune vegetation, if only because it’s delicious. The plant’s leaves are very sage-like, the same color-shape-texture, almost a succulent, salty as the sea and favored by the local sheep, who then supply humans an equally tasty mutton.
Being rather done with meat-eating, however, we brought some home, fried it in browned butter with garlic, spread it liberally over red rajma beans–and wished I’d brought home with me a whole lot more. I don’t have an image of that to share, you’ll have to imagine it, but it sure did take us back to the Somme, Picardie, and that beautiful stretch of northern France that had fed us so richly.
Sources Consulted
Kicel, Agnieszka. 2020. “An Overview of the Genus Cotoneaster (Rosaceae): Phytochemistry, Biological Activity, and Toxicology” Antioxidants 9, no. 10: 1002. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9101002
Vedel, Helge and Johan Lange. 1962. Trees and Bushes in Wood and Hedgerow. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
